Nerves surrounding China’s economic growth coupled with escalating tensions in the Ukraine have pushed the Australian share market to its worst week this year.

Over the five trading days the benchmark S&P/ASX200 Index lost 132.9 points, or 2.4 per cent, to finish at 5329.4. The broader All Ordinaries Index fell 129.2 points, or 2.4 per cent, to 5347.1.

Friday marked the indices’ worst sessions in more than a month, with the ASX200 and All Ordinaries dropping 1.5 per cent.

The sell-off on Friday was broad-based, with 182 of the top 200 stocks losing ground.

“The reporting season was pretty strong, but investors are saying ‘well, what’s going to be the thing to send the market forward into the future?’ and there’s not a lot on the horizon, other than economic data flow to grab hold on. And that’s notoriously unpredictable,” JBWere executive director Mike Kendall said.

Following the close of the local market on Thursday, a deluge of economic data from China was released, including industrial production, retail sales, and fixed assets investments, all of which missed expectations.

Investors continued to worry about the tensions in Ukraine, with a referendum over the weekend to decide on whether Crimea will begin moving towards becoming part of the Russian Federation.

“Valuations have moved ahead of earnings so we need a period where earnings will catch up a bit,” Perpetual portfolio manager Matt Williams said.

“We’ve been hovering around 5200 and 5400 on the index for a little while now, since November we’ve sort of oscilated between 5000 and 5400; we’ve touched 5000 twice in that time, and 5400 almost three times,” Mr Williams said.

Biotechnology hopeful Starpharma is set to earn first sales from its patented anti-viral and anti-bacterial gel formulation when new condoms that the company claims guard against sexually transmitted diseases hit Japanese shelves in the coming months.

Starpharma and its partner Okamoto, which accounts for 60 per cent of Japan's $US500 million condom market, received regulatory approval to begin marketing the "added value" prophylactics, the company announced today.

Chief executive Jackie Fairley said she expects the product will be available in stores in three to four months.

"This receipt of the world's first marketing approval for a VivaGel coated condom in Japan marks a major milestone for this product and for our strategically important partnership with Okamoto," Dr Fairley said.

A similar product marketed by Ansell is awaiting regulatory approval in Australia and could be available "within months", Dr Fairley said. The condoms sold by Okamoto and Ansell will carry the VivaGel brand and Starpharma will receive royalties from the sales.

Dr Fairley said the regulatory approval was a huge milestone for the drug delivery company, which has earned money in the past from diagnostic products but was yet to report substantial financial results from its current development pipeline.

The market opened well down and closed even lower, with last trades confirming a 1.5 per cent drop in the benchmark ASX 200 index, which fell 83 points to 5329.4. The All Ords fell by a similar amount to 5347.1.

The metals and mining sector led the declines, plunging 2.2 per cent. BHP fell 2 per cent and Rio 2.5 per cent.

Banks offered no support, as Westpac slumped 1.8 per cent and CBA 0.9 per cent. NAB finished 1.2 per cent down and ANZ 1.1 per cent.

There were no safe corners for investors, as Telstra dropped 1.4 per cent, Wesfarmers 2 per cent and Woolworths 1.4 per cent.

Best performing sector was utilities, which fell a mere 0.7 per cent.

2:48pm on 14 Mar 2014

Lending finance continues to rise.

Housing finance for owner occupiers has risen by 1.5 per cent as personal finance loans lifted by 0.6 per cent in January.

The latest lending finance figures from the Bureau of Statistics, released today, also showed that commercial loans grew by 2.1 per cent in January and lease finance rose by 4.3 per cent.

"The low interest rate environment, and more importantly the perception of lower rates over the medium term, is fostering a healthier appetite for borrowings," CommSec chief economist Craig James, who has a bullish outlook for the Australian economy, said.

"The lending finance data tends to be a good forward looking indicator on the economy, given that if borrowings increase, spending should pick up over the next few months," he added in a note.

"In that context the improvement in lending should further support gains for broad-based spending and overall economic activity."

Consumer confidence tumbled this month to take it to the lowest level since May as Australians fretted about their jobs and the economic outlook.

The growing gloom could hurt their spending and borrowing decisions, economists said.

2:23pm on 14 Mar 2014

Cardno is looking to raise $50 million via a placementat $6.10 a share to assist with funding the acquisition of PPI Group, reports the AFR's Street Talk column.

Morgans is managing the deal with bids on the placement to close at 4pm on Friday. The placement price is pegged at a 5.1 per cent discount to the last closing price of $6.43 and a 4.4 per cent discount to the 10-day volume weighted average price of $6.38.

”The acquisition significantly builds Cardno’s exposure to oil and gas markets and offers clear opportunities for cross selling,” Morgans said in a note to clients. This is “in line with their growth strategy to continue to diversify their services and markets”.

Cardno is acquiring PPI for $160.5 million, funded by cash (75 per cent) and shares (25 per cent). The acquisition is earnings per share accretive, contributing 2¢ per share in 2014 financial year and an expected full-year contribution of about 5¢ per share.

2:07pm on 14 Mar 2014

What do freshly cut grass, hot cross buns and coffee have in common? Each smell has been used in a recent ad campaigns that combined old-fashioned print with technology intended to convert smell into sales.

This weekend, supermarket giant Coles is placing ads carrying the scent of hot cross buns in Fairfax, News Corp and West Australian newspapers, with a special gadget being set up to spray the page carrying the ad as the presses roll.

Magazines have long included samples of beauty products and perfume, and scented ads have been around in various forms for decades.

Sydney newspaper historian Ken Sanz said Ad News in the '80s ran ads printed on art paper that you scratched to smell a particular scent.

But scented ads are becoming a more prominent form of niche advertising, and one publishers are keen to embrace at the expense of digital rivals.

The euro has done better than many analysts expected - why? Back to top

1:28pm on 14 Mar 2014

The receiver's report into the collapsed engineer Forge Group has revealed it could have been trading while insolvent from November.

Also disclosed was a loss of $326.5 million for the seven months to the end of January.

The report revealed the group had been negotiating a potential full takeover of the group through December as it struggled with problematic contracts which continued to bleed, ultimately leading to its collapse.

Given the costs and the potential size of any recoveries, the receiver has advised creditors to support the winding up of the company.

It also found that Forge had negative assets of $116.3 million at end-January, which wiped out the net assets of $213.4 million held in mid-2013.

As a result, the total equity at end-January was $116.2 million.

At the time when Forge collapsed, it had secured debts of $506 million, with $260 million owed to the ANZ Bank, and a further $265 million owed in the form of insurance bonds, with QBE and Asset Insure holding a large exposure here.

The two troublesome contracts for Forge were the Diamantina power station in western Queensland where the group faced cost overruns resulting in a prospective loss on the project of $61 million, the report disclosed, and the West Angelas power station in WA where the project loss was estimated at $41.8 million.

Gold rose to fresh six-month highs on Friday and was headed for its biggest weekly gain in four weeks, buoyed by mounting tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine, and worries over an economic slowdown in China.

The metal has gained nearly 3 per cent this week, marking its sixth straight weekly rise, as investors exited riskier assets such as equities.

While money flowing into gold-backed exchange-traded funds has increased, reflecting confidence in the metal's outlook, physical demand has quietened as higher prices put off buyers-making some cautious about how long the rally can last.

"Gold will face increasingly stiff resistance on further rallies and will likely need a stronger euro to move significantly higher. A decrease in China's physical demand for gold - even if only a temporary one - could undermine rallies."

The metal is up 14 per cent so far this year.

Demand in China, the world's biggest bullion consumer, has fallen off with prices in Shanghai at a discount to spot prices.

Gold is getting its biggest support from the crisis in Ukraine, which has caused the biggest stand-off between Russia and the West since the Cold War.

And data on Thursday showed China's economy slowed markedly in the first two months of the year, with growth in investment, retail sales and factory output all falling to multi-year lows.

The global uncertainties sent investors lapping up gold, with holdings in SPDR Gold Trust - the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund - rising 2.10 tonnes to 813.30 tonnes on Thursday.

12:29pm on 14 Mar 2014

Time for the best and worst so far today, and Adelaide Brighton has lost almost a tenth of its market capitalisation after announcing the loss of a big customer - not a good day to reveal bad news!

Best is Alacer Gold, while long-suffering Qantas and Mermaid Marine shareholders have something to smile about.

Best and worst performing stocks in the top 200 so far today.

11:57am on 14 Mar 2014

All major regional markets are lower:

Japan's Nikkei -2.6%

Hong Kong's Hang Seng -0.6%

China's Shanghai Composite index -0.6%

Taiwan's TAIEX -0.6%

Korea's KOSPI -0.5%

Singapore's Straits Times index -0.4%

Thai stock exchange +1%

Indonesia's Jakarta Composite index +0.9%

Kiwi NZX 50 -0.8%

11:48am on 14 Mar 2014

Forget the Crimea annexation or a U.S.-Russia standoff. The biggest international threat to US economic growth is the slowdown in China, say economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.

When asked what overseas force has the greatest potential to slow US growth, 27 of the 49 economists cited China's weakening economy. Only eight pointed to the Ukraine standoff and six thought the biggest risk could be a new crisis in the Middle East.

The survey was conducted March 7-11 as the crisis in Crimea unfolded.

The majority sees a risk from China's economy because the slowdown is already under way. On Thursday, China reported weakness in January-February industrial production and retail sales. Plus, as the world's second biggest economy, China has an outsized impact on trade flows, emerging-market currencies and the overall global financial system.

"There are real financial instabilities in China that pose the biggest downside risk to the global outlook," said Julia Coronado of BNP Paribas.

As for the continuing Ukraine crisis, and the possibility of Russia annexing Crimea, most economists expect the impact mainly to hit Russia and Ukraine stock prices and currencies with some spill-over impact on energy markets.

The Coalition government is pushing to have the law changed so that bank tellers can sell an unlimited range of financial products across the counter.

Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos has signalled the government will introduce the first of several amendments to Labor's Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms to Parliament next week.

Laws were introduced last year by the former Labor government to better protect consumers seeking financial advice following a string of financial planning disasters that cost investors billions of dollars.

Under Labor's reforms most commissions and other types of "conflicted" remuneration - pay that can influence the type of advice provided - are banned. Conflicted pay includes non-monetary kickbacks for achieving sales targets and higher commissions for recommending one product over another.

Conflicted pay is banned whether financial products are sold under "general" advice or by financial advisers under "personal" advice, though commissions are allowed on some types of insurance.

But now the Abbott government is proposing bank tellers, planners and call-centre workers who are employees or agents of deposit-taking institutions - banks, credit unions and building societies - be exempt from the ban on conflicted pay as long as the advice is general. Tellers selling more complex products would have to do some additional training.

Leon Carter, national secretary of the Financial Sector Union, said: "This is what the banks lobbied for; they want to have unfettered access to every customer and they want their staff to sell regardless of the needs of the customer."

Matt Levey, director of campaigns at consumer group Choice, said the amendment would mean more people being given general advice by tellers incentivised by commissions.

Fewer people would likely receive personal advice, he said. "It is a sales pitch driven by a commission with no relevance to the person's financial circumstances."

"It is not like (customers) get signed up on the spot": Federal assistant treasurer Arthur Sinodinos. Photo: Rob Homer

11:22am on 14 Mar 2014

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull says the government could consider changing laws that restrict the number of foreign parties that can invest in Telstra by the end of the year.

Both Qantas Airways and Telstra have foreign-ownership restrictions that prevent overseas funds and investors from owning more than a certain percentage of the company.

Telstra chief executive David Thodey recently told journalists at an Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce event in Sydney that while the issue was not of active concern he supported the removal of such caps on principle.

Mr Turnbull said he believed the issue was not an important one for Telstra but that the government was reviewing the issue as part of its push to reduce regulation.

“We’re moving on this because the deregulation of telecommunications is a big one and we’re hoping to get to a position on most of this by the end of the year.”

But Mr Turnbull added this was an issue that had to be discussed by the government before any changes occurred.

“Whether the sympathy leads to support or agreement is another question,” he said. “These issues have got to be discussed and debated.”

11:02am on 14 Mar 2014

JPMorgan has downgraded its earnings forecasts for Ten Network, as the commercial free-to-air television broadcaster suffers from weak ratings.

Ten had ratings growth due to its coverage of the Big Bash League cricket competition and Sochi Winter Olympics, but its audience has dropped off since Sochi wrapped up last month.

JPMorgan notes these sports events were screened mostly outside of official ratings season.

The broker has downgraded its revenue forecast for Ten by about 5 per cent and expects the broadcaster to record a $32 million loss in terms of EBITDA at its half-year result next month.

10:43am on 14 Mar 2014

The Australian dollar has remained resilient despite the sharp falls in the price of iron ore, and as coal and copper prices also came under pressure. On top of that, there have been renewed concerns about Chinese financial conditions and economic growth.

"To have that sort of decline did bring back memories of the second quarter last year when there was also deceleration in the Chinese economy and accompanying fall in commodity prices, so everything correlated and you had huge falls in Aussie," Westpac senior currency strategist Sean Callow said.

"But I think it is certainly a strong indication that Aussie sitting at US105¢ was very vulnerable to that combination of news, but an Aussie sitting either side of US90¢ is not nearly such an obvious sell from here.

"I know there are some aggressive forecasts for the Aussie to collapse, but we at Westpac are not particularly bearish on a multi-month basis."

Westpac forecasts the dollar to fall to US86¢ and remain in the mid-US80¢ early next year.

10:28am on 14 Mar 2014

The Japanese sharemarket has had an even worse start than expected, trading 2.7 per cent lower at the open.

Investors have clearly been unimpressed with yesterday's weak China data and the strengthening yen, which hurts this heavily export-based economy.